Pay and benefits for city employees are at the center of an ongoing debate in Anchorage as administrators and unions begin a new round of contract negotiations that will be governed by the controversial labor law rewrite.

West Anchorage Assemblyman Ernie Hall's lead over write-ins in the April 2 city election widened from 93 votes to 318 Saturday when the city completed a computer count of about 1,100 absentee and questioned ballots in the district.

A new software system meant to automate many functions of Anchorage's city government is more than a year behind the original start date and has risen in price by about $4.5 million since the initial 2011 budget for it, the city's chief financial officer, Lucinda Mahoney, said Friday.